Sponsor (July-Dec 1953)

keting firm's coverage study in April 1952, the average national out-of-home listening bonus in terms of individual listeners is practically 12% of home listening during the week and nearly 15% on weekends. Q. During what hours of the day is out-of-home listening highest? A. The biggest non-home audiences according to Nielsen are during the afternoon with 3:00-4:00 p.m. being the peak listening hour, during both weekdays and weekends. This midafternoon bulge is more pronounced on weekends when Saturday and Sunday drivers are out in force. During the 3:00-4:00 p.m. period on weekends, total non-home listening is 31.5% of home listening, while auto listeners amount to 23% of home listeners. During the weekday 3:00-4:00 p.m. segment, the total non-home figure is 25.1% of home listening with auto listening about half of that. BAB's study of auto listening among cars on the road found that listening was highest 7:00-8:00 a.m. during both weekdays and weekends. Q. Is there much variation in non-home listening among different sections of the country? A. Yes. Nielsen divided the U. S. into five sections: Northeast, East Central, West Central, South and Pacific. It was found, for example, that during the 6:00-7:00 a.m. period the percent age of non-home to home listening ranged from a low of 9.7% to a high of 22.7%; during the noon-l:00 p.m. time the low was 10.1%, the high was 10. V, : during the 11:00 p.m. to midnight slot the low was 6Af'f, the high 12.0',. Regional variations also disclose that the Northeast, on the average, has the greatest amount of non-home listening during the week and just misses being in first place on weekends, when it is a shade below the East Central U. S. However, on weekends, the Northeast has the greatest amount of auto listening. The Pacific states show the least amount of total non-home listening, although their percentage of auto listening to total non-home listening is higher than the average. Regional differences will be important to regional network advertisers or to national network advertisers with regional cut-ins. Q. How can a network advertiser apply the Nielsen non-home listening figures to his Nielsen rating? A. He can't, not directly, anyway. But he can make some educated guesses. Before discussing how, here's just a few words of explanation. The Nielsen non-home figures are not percentage points. That is, if the Nielsen home audience for a program is 10% and the non-home figure during that hour is 10%, the total audience is not 20% but 10% of 10'; or 11%. The non-home audience is a percent of the home audience. Also, in using the Nielsen home and non-home data, the advertiser must remember that NRI ratings are in terms of homes, while the non-home figures are in terms of per6ons. To compare the two in terms of total home and non-home listening, Nielsen has used \arious estimates on the number of home listeners per set. These estimates range from 1.5 to 2.25 persons per set depending on the hour of the day. The nighttime figures are naturally higher than the daytime figures. To get back to the problem of how to add the non-home data to home listening, let's take a specific case — P&G, for example. It has a block of four soap operas on NBC radio between 3:00 and 4:00 p.m. during the week. Nielsen figures show that during that time there is an additional audience bonus (or, at least, there was in April 1952) equal to about 25 % of the home audience. Can P&G be sure that this additional audience is listening to its soapers? First, of all, it can be assumed roughly that every radio show on the air at that time increases its audience on the average by one-fourth. But P&G cannot be sure that the non-home audience divides its listening in the same way as the home audience. Half of this non-home audience happens to be in automobiles during that hour and auto listeners are not supposed to be so keen about concentrating on drama (Please turn to page 72) Average production and talent costs of sponsored network radio shows DAYTIME QUARTER HOUR* $2,229 $3,353 HALF HOUR HOUR NIGHTTIME QUARTER HOUR | HALF HOUR $2,295 | $5,152 $15,000 •These quarter-hour shows include weekly soap operas whose cost brings the average production and talent cost up considerably. HOUR Top 10 agencies in number of quarter hours of programs on network radio* RANK AGENCY NO. QUARTER HOURS 1. BENTON & BOWLES 2. DANCER-FITZGERALDSAMPLE 3. YOUNG & Rl'BICAM 4. WILLIAM ESTY _ 5. FOOTE, CONE & BELDING B. NEEDHAM, LOUS & BRORBY... 7. GEOFFREY WADE _ 8. COMPTON 9. BBDO _ 9. JOHN F. MiRRAY ADVG. 37 34 32 30 28 27 24 21 IB IB "Number of sponsored quarter hours does not necessarily Indicate supremacy in billings. It's measure of activity. Average no, of stations in network lineup, daytime: 222 • Average no. of stations in network lineup, nighttime: 220 Source: All of these data were tabulated from SPONSOR'S Network Radio Comparagraph of 29 /une 7953. This chart giving essential data on net radio shows appears in alternate SPONSOR issues. Chart appears this issue page 89. 70 SPONSOR